56. Rhyne Designs' 6 year Anniversary

This month marks the 6th anniversary of Rhyne Designs and I am once again very proud to show off what’s been going on in the past year.  As always, we currently have projects in all stages of work - some move fast, others take years to go from the sparkle of an idea to the beauty of a finished garden.  Let’s start with a few gardens that are complete & starting to grow into shape:

Built Work in 2018

Last October I was excited to see a particularly fun landscape design come to life in the Capay Valley.  Working with an enthusiastic client who was developing a lavender farm at the same time, Rhyne Designs created a series of different gardens around her new house.  The highlight of the design is a fun serpentine seat wall that defines the main garden spaces of the back yard, complemented by a vegetable garden, bocce court, and native grassland areas.  And surrounding these gardens on three sides are row upon row of lavender plants.  We provided input on the farm layout to create nice sight lines from the house (you can learn more about the Capay Valley Lavender farm at: capayvalleylavender.com).  The plants were still pretty small in October, I can’t wait to return there in a few months to see it in full Spring bloom!

Another Rhyne Designs project completed in the past year was a garden in Marin County for a family of 5 that wanted to maximize the outdoor activities around their remodeled house.  The design includes a swimming pool, spaces for outdoor living and dining, artificial turf for sports, and a vegetable garden.  It was a pleasure to work closely with the architect Ken Catton and the homeowner to create well-detailed site elements that complemented the architecture.

This past year also saw the completion of a new garden space for an apartment complex that houses formerly homeless and at-risk families.  We were happy to donate design services and construction consultation to get this built on a small budget with volunteer labor.  More on that project coming up in a future article.

Design Work Under Construction

Rhyne Designs is, as always, very excited to see gardens go from pretty pictures on paper to actual built landscapes.  While we take great pride and pleasure in the drawings we produce and the design concepts they represent, it is the built result that matters most.

In the hills between Santa Rosa and Calistoga we are pleased to see a new house being built to replace one that was tragically lost in the October 2017 fires.  We are wrapping up the drawings for revitalizing and expanding the extensive gardens that were there before the fire.  Many of the existing rock-lined planting bed shapes are being preserved, along with a recirculating stream and pond.    These paths meander around and have a botanic garden feel, and the new plantings work with this, creating several themed gardens and using some unique plant species.  Closer to the house there will be more modern feeling gardens and an outdoor kitchen, dining area and swimming pool.

We are also looking forward to the construction of a design we completed last fall for a fire-damaged property in the Carneros area.  Working closely with Holder Design Associates architects, we took the elegant modern design of the house and extended it into the landscape design with geometric patterns of plantings and pathways. Plantings are kept low in the direction of the panoramic vineyard views, and the hilltop behind the house is celebrated with a sitting area framed by low flowering plants.

New Design Work Underway

Currently “on the boards” are two residential estate gardens in the Napa Valley, one of which converts an old farmstead and preserves many of the original trees, including a fruit orchard, palms and a large Oak with a 6 foot diameter trunk.  The new gardens for this house will create many fine outdoor living spaces looking out to beautiful valley views, while also including large areas of native and water-conserving plantings.

We have also been having fun with a small project in Pleasant Hill that focuses on native plantings for habitat.  The design is shaping up nicely, creating a backyard oasis where the homeowners will be able to sit and watch the bees, butterflies, hummingbirds enjoying a beautiful collection of flowering perennials.

Rhyne Designs has also started looking at projects involving denser housing in more urban settings.  We have enjoyed consulting with Bay Tree Design on an interesting project that combines senior housing, an elderly care facility, and a children’s preschool all on one property, with gardens in the center to bring everyone together to interact as a community.  We are also planning on being involved in more projects that fill in sites in the urban Bay Area with multiple units to help alleviate the lack of affordable housing and put more people near their workplace.  Garden space on these dense projects is very important and can lead to some fun designs, including green roofs and socially stimulating outdoor spaces.

Into 2019

It has been another great year, and we are happy to see so much rain and snow falling in California right now.  All these recently planted gardens can thrive on all that moisture and we should have a great Spring of flowers to look forward to!